What’s most important to your team? Personalisation, data management, easy of use, reporting..? There is a pretty long list of variables.

Let’s do this, the key things to consider in order of importance:

An Audience

This is where your email marketing strategy starts in 2020! For this exercise I’m going to assume you already have clean data and a reason to speak to that list. No audience and like Lisa famously said to Bart:

If a tree falls in the woods and there is no one around does it make a sound?

Targeting and Segmentation

Have you sliced and diced your list so you can organize it in a way that makes sense to you. Some of the email marketing platforms allow you to do this in the webapp. Other email tools don’t, this is a key consideration as you mange various email marketing campaigns over time.

Content

The fun bit (for some of us). Don’t forget to let the reader know who you are. Not just your name and company domain. How many email newsletters do you get that you just don’t remember signing up for? Who are they from, make sure the recipient can easily work that out straight away.

You also want to focus on making sure the reader understands what they are going to get from reading your email.

Most of the email marketing tools/services offer in app editing of newsletter templates for example. I would really recommend not using them. Craft your email marketing content in a tool designed for writing. Grammerly is the most popular tool that email marketers seem to use. I personally much prefer Hemingway. Partly because I have delusions of grandeur! Mostly because it just works and it’s super simple. It’s a great looking tool especially well suiting to creating email marketing content. It trains you to write in email friendly format. It’s the best email marketing tool in my email marketing toolbox. And it really is free!

Editing

Less is more.

Design

There is a gzillion things to think about when it come to designing your communication. All the email marketing tools will tell you that they have the best email templates. Which ever email marketing platform you select be sure to remember. Just keep it simple. Make sure that your email copy is clear and easy to read. Especially on smaller screens.

A Call to Action

If you are asking for something (and I hope you are) even it’s just a click… Make sure you are clear about it. Again testing here is key, look for a email marketing tool that includes split testing as standard!

ESP Platform

We cover this bit in more detail further down. Your Email Service Provider is different from your Email Marketing Platform. In this article we are talking platforms. The ‘service provider’ is at the next level of technical. You’ll need to consider this if your looking email marketing platforms for large business. You should probably get some help from us on that if you are doing large email broadcast campaigns to big numbers of people. Spending a few bucks on help with the email marketing planning will pay dividends.

Deliveribility

If the emails aren’t getting into the inbox then you are wasting your time. Keep testing this and use tools like mxtoolbox.com to make sure you are on track. If you have a problem with deliveribility it can undermine all the work you are putting in on your email marketing automation.

Testing and Reporting

Your platform will have some reporting, take some time to see how well you did. Again if you are looking for big business email marketing platforms, testing email marketing has it’s advantages. If you are looking at smaller email marketing campaigns testing has diminishing returns.

Is that list in the right order for your business? Are they the key features you want to consider.

Take a minute now to make your own checklist. From there you can build out a rational selection process for your email marketing platform.

It’s easy to be drawn to the new shiny things from the next big thing you see. If your honest which of the shiny new features do you use beyond the ordered list above?

To take your marketing to the next level you need to be ruthless in deciding on the best email platform for you. A bit of time choosing is going to give you improved results in your campaigns. Which goes straight to the bottom line.

If you’re just starting out email marketing then you’ll want to keep things simply. As you knowledge grows you’ll naturally start using more in-depth features.

What’s next?

The selection of your email promoting platform is ultimately up to you.

And that choice should tick these boxes:

Your Key objectives, your email marketing game plan

Your team’s skill level and resources

Budget constraints whether that is time or money

Functionality (This is the bottom of the list)

Take a look at some of the key players, decide what features are your ‘red lines’ what your budget is and get started!

Each of these email marketing services has advantages:

There are hundreds of email marketing platforms, if you have found one with the upper-hand over other email marketing software let us know about! We’d love to add a review and compare it to other email marketing services.

Your going to find the most effective email marketing tool for your business!

That’s exciting!

Most of these players have trial periods. Don’t be afraid to trial a few and pick the most effective tool for your email marketing strategy desires.